Nah, that’s false. Miniaturization was already underway before the Space Race. The space program absolutely benefited from it, yes. But NASA wasn’t at the forefront of those developments.
I’ll give you an example: the technology in the Instrument Unit on the Saturn V, which was the computer that controlled the Saturn V during launch, was largely derived from System/360. By technology here I mean things like the Unit Logic Devices (ULDs) out of which the logic boards in the Launch Vehicle Digital Computer (LVDC) were made. No surprise, I suppose, given that it was contracted to IBM’s Federal Systems Division.
Sure, but compare density of a s360 mainframe and the Apollo Guidance Computer - they pumped a lot of money into integrated circuits just as they weee becoming viable to hit their size, mass and power targets.
Sure, this would likely have happend anyway, but possibly later with all related knock off effects.
> Sure, this would likely have happend anyway, but possibly later with all related knock off effects.
What are we missing because they did that though? Or what came latter? There is no way to answer this. It is easy to see what happened because of effort, but not what you didn't get (or got latter) because to focused on something else.
